


hello, honesty

by AMidnightDreary



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Domestic, Idiots in Love, Implied Sexual Content, Love Confessions, M/M, Poetry, lots of poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 17:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19728196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMidnightDreary/pseuds/AMidnightDreary
Summary: Aziraphale decides that poetry is the best way to confess his love. It goes about as well as expected.





	hello, honesty

They were not good at talking. Which didn’t mean that they didn’t talk - they talked a lot these days; there was barely a day when they didn’t -, just that they didn’t _talk_ . Aziraphale was aware of that. He saw the possibilities of what their conversations could have been right there in the air between them, heavy and still floating, immovable. He found himself looking at them every so often, mulling the words over in his head, poking and nibbling at them. Already tasted them on his tongue, then just ended up saying, _Crêpes for lunch, what do you think?_

Crowley looked at him as if he knew, sometimes. And Aziraphale thought that, yes, probably Crowley knew, had known for centuries already. Aziraphale hadn’t been that quick, but he’d still been carrying around these unspoken words for decades. And ever since the almost-end of the world, they had only gotten heavier. Which was most likely because they spent so much time with each other now; it was impossible not to think certain things when Crowley made it so tempting to think them.

Crowley didn’t mean to do that, no. Aziraphale was sure of that. Since the seventies, Crowley had been comparably careful around Aziraphale, as if fearing that a ambivalent word or a lingering touch might scare him away. And that fear wasn’t _not_ justified - hadn’t been, at least. Now, Aziraphale had to teach his hands that lingering touches wasn’t something there were allowed to do, and his teeth to bite down on his tongue when an ambivalent word wanted to sneak past.

Aziraphale hadn’t ever been afraid of honesty. He liked honesty, in general, as long as she didn’t force him to reveal truths he wasn’t yet ready to reveal. In cases like that, he avoided honesty rather aptly. He hadn’t seen her in months.

And that was all kinds of odd, and very annoying, because he _should_ have been ready by now, shouldn’t he? It felt like he was - but only sometimes, when he watched Crowley spilling wine all over himself and scowling at the liquid as if it had insulted his non-existent great-grandmother, or when Crowley shook his head at both the plant he’d deposited in Aziraphale’s bookshop and Aziraphale himself, because _she’s already acting up with you, angel, you’d better start threatening her_. (Just for the record, Aziraphale had not started threatening the poor dear, and he wasn’t going to any time soon.) Or when Crowley sat on the other side of the table at lunch and seemed oddly far away, especially when he didn’t stop looking at Aziraphale until he forgot what he’d been chattering on about. Then those damned - blessed - words would return to his mind, to his tongue, and his teeth would bite down and he’d look away and fiddle around with his fork, and Crowley would stay silent. This sort of silence was an old friend of theirs.

Aziraphale knew words. He knew every word that had been invented so far and kept up with the new ones, he spoke - in Crowley’s opinion - far too many languages, he had touched and read so many books that he’d lost count of them in 1232. He knew words. He’d read millions and millions of love confessions, of please-stay-with-me-confessions, of I-wouldn’t-know-who-to-be-without-you-confessions. Humans are obsessed with that sort of thing, they can’t get enough of such confessions, and Aziraphale knew so many by heart, but how did you say things like that? How did it work? Aziraphale had tried it one or two times and always ended up stuttering until Crowley had told him not to hurt himself, and so Aziraphale had nearly swallowed his tongue and begged the Almighty to create a hole he could sink into, which She never had.

Aziraphale hadn’t turned the page in several long minutes.

He was too aware of Crowley’s breaths right next to him, slow and even; he was maybe asleep, maybe just pretending to be. Apart from that, it was quiet in the living room of Aziraphale’s little flat above the bookshop. Aziraphale himself had stopped breathing a while ago. He was staring at his book, at the words written there, and wondered how he’d never considered this before. For once, he had to admit that Crowley had been right - for someone as intelligent as Aziraphale, he had really been quite daft about this.

He knew words, so many of them. Why not simply use them?

Crowley's bony ankles and just as bony feet were resting in Aziraphale's lap beneath the book, bare, a few black scales catching the dim light of the reading lamp. Aziraphale looked down at them, swallowing, then put his hand on the demon's ankle.

"Crowley? Crowley, dear, are you awake?"

"No," Crowley said, voice muffled, barely audible.

"Crowley."

A long-suffering sigh was pressed into Chesterfield leather. "What, angel? Want me to go?"

"No. Of course not." That came easily, fluidly, without any trouble at all. Good start, that. "You can stay the night if you'd like."

Crowley made some sort of _hmph_ sound, which Aziraphale knew meant _yes, thanks_. They had exchanged these words a few times before. Crowley spent more nights here than in his own flat by now.

It got quiet again, and Aziraphale experienced one of those - for him - very rare _now or never_ moments. Which was ridiculous in itself, because _never_ meant an unimaginably long time, for them, and Aziraphale knew that this was bound to happen sooner or later. So it was _now or in two millennia_ , really, only that two millennia felt like _never._

Hoping that Crowley was still awake or at least awake enough, Aziraphale cleared his throat and began to read.

" _How do I love thee? Let me count the ways_ ," he read, then had to remind himself to breathe and not get distracted by the way Crowley minutely stilled. It took a second, or two or five, and only then he continued, " _I love thee to the breadth and depth and height_ _my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the levelof- [1]"_

"Aziraphale," Crowley interrupted him, and for a moment Aziraphale had no idea how to respond.

"Yes?" He said then, sounding meeker than he would have liked.

"What're you doing?"

Aziraphale swallowed. "Reading to you."

"No," Crowley said, wary.

"No?"

A pause. Then, "You're reading poetry to me."

Aziraphale didn't quite understand the difference, but he nodded. "Yes."

A longer pause. "Okay."

"Okay?" Aziraphale echoed, and Crowley shifted with more flailing than was strictly necessary, yellow eyes opening just a crack to peer up at the angel.

"Okay," he repeated. Then his eyes closed again.

"Ah." Aziraphale hesitated, glancing between the book and the demon. "I'm not sure if you understood -"

"I understood alright," Crowley said. He sounded like he was half asleep, gruff because he was not actually asleep. " _I love thee to the level of everyday's most quiet need, by sun and candle light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right_ \- which they rarely do -; _I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise_. Which they do even less. Want me to go on?"

Aziraphale gaped at him at him for several long seconds. "But," he managed eventually, "you don't read."

"I didn't."

"But you do now?"

Crowley sighed. "What do you think I'm doing when you bury yourself in words, huh?"

Aziraphale was still staring at him. "Well, you go out to… get up to some mischief."

"Yeah, but when I'm home?"

 _Home_ , Aziraphale mouthed, stunned, then frowned, and stayed quiet long enough that Crowley looked at him again.

"There's not much one can do here other than reading," he informed Aziraphale, "when you're busy."

"Oh." That made at least some resemblance of sense, Aziraphale supposed. "And you read - love poems."

"S'just the shelf I started with," Crowley said. "Coincidence, really."

Aziraphale was about eighty-eight percent sure that that was a lie. At least the _coincidence_ part. "I see," he said. "Which one - er. I mean, do you have a favourite?"

Crowley hummed, then drawled, " _Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and moretemperate...[2]… _"

Aziraphale's lips twitched into a smile that felt incredibly strained. He looked away. "Don't mock me, Crowley."

Crowley didn't look at him, and he didn't say anything for a while. When he eventually spoke up, it was very quietly. " _Believe my wish, most solemnly profess'd, that we should ne'er again be so apart._ " He took a breath. " _Yet we are twain; it seems you're worldsaway."[3]_

Aziraphale's throat felt very tight all of a sudden. "Is - is that you're favourite?"

"No," Crowley said, tone even. "Accurate, though."

Crowley's eyes were closed again. Aziraphale knew that his own were very wide. He had to swallow a few times before he managed to speak. "Crowley, I… I don't know what to say."

The demon snorted. "Don't ask me, angel. _You_ started this."

He did, didn't he? Aziraphale looked at the book he was still holding, at the poem he'd read earlier. He knew a thousand other ones by heart, so he closed the book. He didn't look up from it, though, not even when he said, " _It was a frightening day when I realized I loved you. If I am being honest, I’d known it for a while, but it is far easier to bury some truths than think themaloud."[4] _

Crowley needed a moment to process that, apparently, because it took a while until he said, "That's not even a year old."

Aziraphale hummed. "I have a first edition."

"Yes, I know. Was surprised, is all. When was that?"

"I bought the -"

" _No._ When did you realize?"

The question was impossible to answer. Impossible not to answer - Aziraphale found himself fumbling for words and settled for, "I'm not sure," which was altogether unsatisfying.

Crowley seemed to agree, because the only thing he said was, "Huh."

"I always knew, I did," Aziraphale hurried to say. "Even in the beginning - I already cared. More than I should have - I mean, more than I wanted to, at the time."

Crowley was looking at him again, eyes unwavering and attentive. "So since Eden, then."

"In a way," Aziraphale muttered, then cleared his throat and added, " _And, when the friendly sun smil’d, And She would mark the opening skies, I saw no heaven - but in youreyes."[5] _

Crowley huffed a laugh. "You changed something right there."

"Edgar wouldn't mind," Aziraphale said primly. "I was friends with him, you know. While you slept."

Crowley hummed and sat up, withdrawing his legs from Aziraphale's lap. It started Aziraphale into looking back at the demon, but Crowley didn't do anything but force his long legs into a folded position under him and look at Aziraphale. His smirk said that he was amused; his eyes said that he was anything but.

" _But I think the rain fell just to touch you_ ," he said. " _Even the trees sigh when they hear youcoming."[6] _

Aziraphale had to laugh, despite laughing at this being a bit rude. "I'm hardly the one of us who makes plants react in any way, my dear. You -"

" _Come with me, I said_ ," Crowley cut him off, " _and no one knew where, or how my pain throbbed. No carnations or barcaroles for me, only a wound that love hadopened."[7]_

The laugh died on Aziraphale's lips, as did his smile. "Crowley -"

" _I go from loving to not loving you, from waiting to not waiting foryou,"[8] _Crowley continued, then jumped between sonnets, " _I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no otherway than this."[9]_

" _Crowley_ -"

"It's fine," Crowley said, cutting him off again. "Doesn't matter, really. I know you can't bring yourself to say it, you don't have to. Want more tea?"

And he grabbed Aziraphale's still half-filled cup with by now cold tea and stood up, even though he could just use a miracle, even though it was usually Aziraphale who made the tea when they were together, even though this was _not_ a moment either of them could simply walk away from.

Aziraphale turned on the sofa, arm on the backrest, staring after his oldest (only) friend. " _I love you much,_ ” Aziraphale said, his voice urgent, almost panicked, " _Most beautiful darling, more than anyone on the earth, and I like you better than anything in thesky."[10]_

Silence, for several long moments.

"I can say it, Crowley," Aziraphale said then, quietly. "And it's true, I swear."

" _Chaos is an angel who fell in love with ademon,"[11] _was apparently all Crowley had to say to that.

Aziraphale actually didn't know that one, or maybe he'd just forgotten. But it didn't matter, he didn't even really realize, because there was something so self-deprecating about it all, something so weary, and he couldn't - didn't want to - deal with that.

"You can't ask me to say it and then tell me it's wrong, Crowley," he said, voice strained. "That's not fair."

"I didn't ask you to say it," Crowley snapped, "I specifically told you that you _don't have to._ "

"But -"

"And I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it's _chaos._ " The cup appeared back on the table, probably because Crowley didn't want to shatter it. "If one of us ever said it's wrong, it wasn't bloody me."

Aziraphale got to his feet too, feeling like Crowley was unbearably far away. "I know," he said, approaching the demon, hands fiddling, "I _know_ , and I'm sorry -"

"Don't apologise."

Aziraphale pressed his lips together, frustrated. "I cannot unsay what I said, Crowley, or undo… If you don't want me to apologise, what do you want me to say?"

"How about spouting some more poetry?" Crowley suggested, scoffing. "Worked well so far, didn't it?"

Aziraphale wrung his hands. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"M'not upset," Crowley countered, in a tone that said that he was very much upset. "No, this is a wonderful idea of yours, really. Some humans are so good with words, why not steal some of them?"

Aziraphale frowned. "I'm not sure -"

"You've got some _raunchy_ books too, haven't you? I saw them." Crowley walked towards Aziraphale again, hips swaying into places human hips had absolutely no business to be. " _Part those sheets like holy waters, and I will worship your skin like a born againbeliever.[12] _Is that something you'd like to hear?"

Aziraphale didn't blush, he was too busy frowning. "I don't want you to _steal_ words just because they sound pretty, I -"

"Yes, _exactly._ How about we don't steal any words at all, huh?"

Aziraphale opened his mouth, then shut it again. Crowley looked at him, brows raised, arms crossed; a challenge.

“It’s not about the words, Crowley, is it?” Aziraphale said after half of an eternity had passed. “You already know.”

“Of course I know.”

“Why is this important, then?”

“Who said that it is?”

“Everything about this does, my dear.”

They just stared at each other then, for quite a while. Then, Aziraphale straightened his back and - carefully - grabbed the demon’s hand, then pulled him back to the Chesterfield. “ _Then let me show you what I see,_ ” he said and just shushed Crowley when he began to protest. They sat down, close to each other, close enough that their thighs were touching. It was impossible to let go of Crowley’s hand, so Aziraphale kept holding it, just like he held the demon’s gaze. “ _I see galaxies in your eyes and fire in your hair -”_ He forgot the next line then, distracted by the look in those very eyes he’d just mentioned, so he simply continued with the one after the next. “ _I see what you cannot: you are absolutely, maddeningly, irrevocablyperfect.[13]_ And I love you, I do. It doesn’t matter how I say it, what words I use, but… just for the record, I meant every single one of them, and they were all my own. I made them my own. That’s what poetry is all about, darling.”

"I don't care about words," Crowley said and looked at Aziraphale, as if this was supposed to make Aziraphale understand something important.

It took a while - too long, probably - but then something clicked, and Aziraphale blinked. "Oh," he said. "Would you - Would you like me to show you? Is that it?"

"Yes," Crowley demanded, rather shamelessly.

So Aziraphale did.

  
*

Later, they were still lying on the Chesterfield, but now entwined with each other, and also naked. Human bodies, Aziraphale thought while listening to Crowley's heartbeat, were truly marvellous things and, in a way, much better than poetry. Or maybe they themselves were poetry - Aziraphale still had to make up his mind about that.

"Crowley?" He asked into the tired and content silence, keeping his voice quiet in case Crowley had already drifted off.

He hadn't. "Hmm?"

"Can I steal a few more words? It'll be the last today, I promise. And there are just nineteen of them."

Crowley sighed in a way that told Aziraphale that the demon was about to show his very prominent indulgent side once more. "Sure, angel."

Aziraphale propped himself up on his elbows and beamed down at Crowley, who merely raised a brow at him. " _I’ll be the wind, the rain and the sunset,"_ Aziraphale quoted proudly, " _The light on your door to show that you’rehome."[14]_

And Crowley laughed. "Been listening to bebop, haven't you?"

* * *

1Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee?  
[return to text]

2William Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII[return to text]

3 This is, in fact, not by William Shakespeare, but by **popsonnet** on tumblr. The author thinks that Crowley mistaking that wonderful poem for an actual Shakespeare sonnet and quoting it to his angel, who doesn't even realize that it isn't by Shakespeare because he is lowkey panicking, is rather funny.[return to text]

4Komal Kapoor[return to text]

5Edgar Allan Poe, Tamerlane[return to text]

6J.Lynn[return to text]

7Pablo Neruda, Sonnet VII. The original is in Spanish and even prettier.[return to text]

8Pablo Neruda, I Do Not Love You Except I Love You[return to text]

9Pablo Neruda once more, solely because he is one of the author’s favourite poets. Sonnet XVII  
[return to text]

10E.E. Cummings[return to text]

11Christopher Poindexter[return to text]

12Tyler Knott Gregson[return to text]

13Ariana[return to text]

14The Velvet Underground, I'll Be Your Mirror[return to text]


End file.
